How do power and authority manifest in politics? Politics is about power. Usually power is exercised through authority; authority is situation specific. Weber delineated three types of authority....

How do power and authority manifest in politics? Politics is about power. Usually power is exercised through authority; authority is situation specific. Weber delineated three types of authority. Traditional authority is stable through time, and people obey because they always have. When traditional authority is challenged, charismatic authority often emerges, when people obey due to the personal characteristics of the leader. When a group begins to create rules, legal-rational authority ensues. This is kind of authority is viewed as impartial, with rationally derived rules that people obey because the authority is thought to be legitimate. Foucault argued that power is always connected to knowledge and that it is both repressive and creative at once.